Kentucky Trip

Needles @ Enchanted Yarn & Fiber in Russellville, Kentucky.

Christmas is over for another year.

Christmas has come and gone. This year I got to spend time with both side of the family. We spent the week leading up to Xmas with my parents and then Thursday night we headed to Needles Mom's to spend Christmas eve night so that Needles could help her Mom with the turkey dinner. Everything was very good. Turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy and homemade rolls. For dessert we had squash and pecan pie with ice cream. Mmmmmm. I mostly got cash or gift cards this year. I did win 20$ on a instant lotto scratch off card. That was nice. The next several days are going to be busy. We are heading down to see my parents in Kentucky on Monday. Wednesday we are coming back and then going to Needles Moms again for New Years and the late antlerless deer season which is looking like it is going to be extremely cold. I hope my new UA thermal underwear does a good job. I hope everyone had a great Xmas.

Xmas 2009

Merry Christmas in psychedelic splendor.

Christmas times a coming.

This weekend has been a little work, a little play and some relaxation. Friday after work I helped a friend move a lot of his bigger items into a truck in preparation for his upcoming move. Saturday I awoke with sore muscles and the need to finish up our Xmas shopping. We ventured to the big city to Rural King where they were having a tax free weekend sale. I managed to pick up a Xmas gift for me from Needles. Also we finished up shopping for her uncles and my Dad. After shopping we had breakfast at Denny's and ate way too much. We skipped lunch and just waited until my work Xmas party to eat supper. Today has been filled with sleeping in and relaxation on the couch. I think as far as shopping we are finished for Xmas. We are almost half way through December and it still doesn't feel like Xmas.

I needed this.

This weekend Needles and I had plans to head South to the promise land. Since I had to work late Friday and Needles was working on her 50 page paper and we have been run ragged over the last few weeks, we decided to postpone our trip and relax this weekend. This morning my friend "D" and I decided to go to our favorite photography place and snap a few hundred pics. It had been a long tme since I had been able to go and I was ready to have fun and relax. Here is a few of the pics that made the cut for displaying. Hope you enjoy them.

Mallard
Leaf

Barred Owl
Northern Harrier Hawk
Bald Eagle on Nest
Mallard Ducks
A lot of Mallards
Sandhill Cranes
Young Redtail
A bunch of deer
Three bucks

Deer Season 2009.

This deer season was filled with ultimate excitement followed by ulitmate dissapointment. If you want to know more visit my hunting blog. Ramblins Hunting Lodge.

Back from the weekend.

We went to Owensboro for the weekend. We arrived at our destination around 5:30pm Friday evening. When we arrived our hosts had beef and vegetables from the crock pot. Mmmmm. Then we had to make a late run to Coldstone Creamery. We got back to Cynical and Ragged's place and before long we were yawning and looking for a place to curl up for the night. The next morning we were treated by Cynical's parents to B'fast at Sho e (Shoney's) but the lights were out in the n,y and s. It was good but probably not good for us. After that the ladies parted from us and headed to their planned outing which I am sure Needles will post about. Cynical and I made a run to Sam's then Walmart. When we got back I did a little Xmas shopping online for Needles and then we just relaxed on the couch until the ladies came back to pick us up for another run to Walmart and then Target. After we returned our hists ordered Domino's pizza and we had brownies warm from the oven for dessert. We stayed up late watching the movie UP and then it was time to go to bed. This morning we got up to cinnamon rolls fresh fruit and "organic" yogurt and juice. For lunch we stopped by Panera Bread and when we got back it was time for us to head back home. We had lots of fun and even more to eat. Its always fun to visit with Ragged and Cynical and we thank them for their hospitality. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

More Pumpkins Exploding!

Halloween 2009 video.

This is a short video of the front yard on Halloween night. We started putting this out about 10am and by 3pm we were finished. Trick or Treating was disappointing this year in our area with a final tally of 53. Trick or treating started this year at 5pm which was still daylight and lasted until 7 pm. We usually have it 6pm to 8pm. For our first hour we had a total of 2 trick or traters with the rest of them coming in the last hour. Our final vistor was a little after 7pm. We started packing up and by 9pm it was all back in the garage. I sat on the couch a dozed off a time or two before finally calling it a night and going to bed a little before 10pm. Today we went out to "G" house and picked up the rest of the airblown and blow mold items. They are also tucked away in the garage for another year. Next up deer season...I can't wait.

Fright Night Pics.

A few day light pics to start off.

The dark side.

A pretty sad turn out in our area of the neighborhood. I guess I shouldnt be suprised since there were only 3 houses within sight tha turned their porche light on to give out candy. I think our final count was 53. SAD.

Happy Halloween!

Enjoy.

Not so smooth CSF.

Last weekend we had our 5th and thank heavens last Cache Slash Fest. I thought other than the inconsiderate person down the street wanting to drive a dually tractor down the street with people parked on both sides of the road was bad enough but NO! I get to work this morning to final out that there were other issues from the event. We found out that "G's" neighbor next door to the event had his mailbox ran over. I guess it wasn't too bad as it just got scratched bent and pulled off the post. I bet the person who did this has a nice souvenir from the event. Also one of our attendees which we knew was already a pain in the butt was not so much a pain to us but to one of the few companies that did contribute to the event. Apparently this person thought that it took too long to get service and decided to take it upon herself to use profanity and answer the businesses phone and hang up on the manager of the business. Yep... Just what I needed to seal the coffin on this event. This will be that last geocaching event I will ever be associated with. Thank you for letting me vent.

Onward to a better subject. "D" and I went down to Mt. Carmel Sunday evening and spent a couple of hours looking for eagles and making the most of the light before the sun went down behind the trees. These are a few of the pics I got. Not the most productive day but any day out in the woods is a good day.

Busy Weekend.

Friday night our guests arrived to visit and attend our yearly event. Cynical and Ragged arrived and we enjoyed Needles spaghetti with home made meatballs for supper. After that Rudy, Brando and youngens arrived at the house for a visit. We sat and visited and talked about what was going on in each others lives. Before long it was time for the youngens to go home and get to bed and not too long after that we were ready to get rested up for the long day we had planned ahead of us. This weekend we had our Final Cache Slash Fest Event. This was the 5th one and it was time to call it quits with all the work, expense and effort put into this thing, it was getting kinda stressful for all involved. This year we started off the event with registration then after most of the attendees arrived we had the geocaching coordinated for the event caches delivered in a unique way. By ultralite. The plan was for the ultralite to make a pass and then turn for a second pass to drop the coordinates. The coordinated by the way were small slips of paper wrapped around a Tootsie roll then wrapped with tin foil. Since the weather was iffy from the get go and the drop was cancelled the day before due to weather conditions the drop plans had to altered a bit with the drop being on the first pass. If you would like to see video of the drop watch it below.

After the geocachers had their coordinates they were on their way to get the event caches. We had a few stragglers who showed up late that received their coordinates by just getting them from registration. While parking was a bit of a issue with the wet weather we had been having the attendees had to park on the side of the road, where in the past we had them park in the yards. About an hour or so after the cachers left to find the caches we had a very inconsiderate person want to drive their John Deere tractor with not the usual 2 tires on the back. It had 4 tires so that they took up the whole road want to drive down the street we were having the event at. This person parked the tractor in the middle of the road blocking traffic both ways for about 10 minutes until I started walking to the area to find out what was going on. It seems this inconsiderate idiot that could see the road was blocked to wide load traffic, wide load being his fat head, decided to drive the tractor this way only to make a spectacle of himself. The person called to sheriffs office to have the vehicles parked on the side of the road towed away. I told the person that their were other roads to drive to get around the blockage but he would have any of it. He decided to block the road for almost 30 minutes while we waited for the sheriff. After I guess he thought was too long to wait he decided to turn around and while doing so killed the tractor to our amusement. He finally got the tractor turned around and went the way he should have in the first place. After he left we got the vehicle moved just in time for the sheriff to drive by slowly and just kept on going. After the attendees got back we all had a good chuckle at this persons expense. If you would like to do some seasonal TPing I know just the place for you. After the drama was over it was time for games, prizes and food. Before long it was getting dark and cold an most of the attendees were starting to leave. We managed to get out of there a little after 8pm. I hope everyone had a good time and we had plenty of food left over to have a whole other event. I am glad that it is over. Sunday morning we awoke a little weary for the previous days activity. Needles made breakfast with her sweet and spicy beacon. Yum. After breakfast our guests Ragged & Cynical sat with us in the living room a talked about life and its ups and downs and the up coming holidays and the stress in which that can bring with it. Before long it was time for our guests to go home as much as we tried to get them to stay another night or two or three, they thought they needed to get back to things like fuzzy roommates and work. Oh well we tried and I am comforted in the idea of seeing them again in a few short weeks. This afternoon my friend "D" and I went to Mt. C to do some photography. I was looking at my previous pictures and I hadnt been down there for over a month. I got a few pics I will share later. I am too tired. Have a good week everyone.

Rough start to a nice relaxing weekend.

Friday after a nice end note at work I went home and finished packing for our weekend trip. When I got home Needles and Jenny from the Blog was awaiting my arrival and the start of our weekend plans. We loaded up the car and headed South and with ever mile we traveled my stress and worries seemed to slip away. This lasted all of about an hour when we got about half way to our destination and the car decided to make a noise. After a little weaving and a couple of quick brake lock ups to aid in diagnosing the problem, I decided we needed to return home as I wasn't sure what was going on. When I got on a nice straight stretch of road I opened up the throttle and the noise chattered and clunked at first but seemed to become less frequent and then go away completely. So what I have learned is Broken Car + 100 miles per hour = Fixed Car. There is no denying my logic. We were only 10 miles from the house on our return trip when the car seemed to be fixed. When we got home I looked over the car and couldn't seem to figure out what had caused the issue. We then blamed it on rocks as Needles had an issue with this just a few days before. After all this and the ladies took some ginger root, my weaving at 70 Mph didn't set well with their stomachs, we decided to resume our trip but in the Jeep instead. We were on our way, two hours later than planned but non the less heading in the direction of our weekend destination. When we were driving through a little town I noticed an car pulling out from the left. I thought she will stop.... Nope she kept coming and I had not time to stop so I had to swerve over onto the shoulder to get around the little old lady that just pulled out in front of us with out a second glance. This seemed to be strike TWO in our list of things to make us stay home this weekend. As the near death experience started to fade from being branded into our brain just a few moments ago, things started to smooth out....That is until we hit the road construction on 164. After running a stop light since I was setting in the middle of an intersection we took a detour that at first got us lost and then later we were able to see where we needed to be but not how to get there. We crossed over 164 twice before we finally found our way to the road we needed to be on. I guess this was strike THREE I think because I lost track of the signs to go back home and just crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head. We arrived in O'town two and a half hours later than we planed and late for the planed chili supper. I was just glad we arrived safely and that we could finally start our weekend of de stressing. Saturday morning we walked up to the local Library to a book sale. Unfortunately the book sale was unproductive in the way of newly acquired used books. After that we went to the Shogun so that Jenny could enjoy the show, environment and food. After we had stuffed our belly's, it was time for Halloween shopping. We ventured to three Halloween stores and I picked up a few items. We returned home for some porch setting, knitting for the ladies and a nap for me. When I awoke my cousin "J" was there so I got to visited with her and her daughter "M". We had missed them Friday night due to our delayed plans so I was glad to get another chance to visit with them. After they returned home we had chili dogs for Supper with a Cold Stone Creamery for dessert. We sat outside at the Creamery since there wasn't enough seating inside and froze while we ate the delicious ice cream . It was sooooo worth it. Needles and I got the Mud Pie Mojo, coffee flavored ice cream hand mixed with Oreo style chocolate cookie and peanut butter, Mmmmmm. Before long the eyes were getting heavy so it was time for bed. I layed in bed for about an hour until I finally had to get up. Too many things was running through my head to sleep so I stayed up playing with Cynical's Itouch. I think I might just have to order one soon. Today we had a great breakfast and did some porch setting until we decided it was too cold and returned into the house. For lunch we had salad, baked potato and grilled pork chop. Just after lunch Cyncial's Mom and Dad visited and before long it was time to head back North. We had a great time but it went too quick. Thanks Cynical and Ragged for having us.

Stealth Pics

Turkeys
Squirrel

Raccoon

New Stealth Camera Video

Multimedia message

Latin America Culture Night.

Tonight Needles and I went to Latin America Culture Night. It was very interesting as several people and families from Central and South America talked about where they came from and the similarities and differences of our cultures. We then were released to go to the buffet which consisted of Latin American Cuisine. The menu consisted of Arroz Con Pollo (Chicken Breast simmered with rice, peas, bacon and cilantro), Cuban Black Beans, Caribbean Spiced Sweet Potatoes, Curtido Rojo Salad (Julienne Beets with Cabbage, Peppers, Tomato, Onion and Green Beans), Jicama Slaw, Mango Salsa, Tomato & Poblano Chilli Salsa with Red and Blue Corn Chips Grilled Flat Bread and for dessert : Chef Liz Latin Surprise which was a wedge of devils food chocolate cake with a Carmel drizzle and broken up heath bar over the top. It was all very good especially the sweet potatoes. I love my yams. After the meal we were entertained by FlamencOle. Flamenco dancers from, yep you guessed it...Indianapolis, Indiana.

If you want to know more about FlamencOle please visit http://ericadominguez.com/

It was a lot of fun with crowd participation. Thanks Needles for asking me to go. I enjoyed it very much.

Where did the weekend go?

Friday after a very stressful week at work, we broke out of Sumner and headed South to the promise land. On the agenda was a huge sale at Main Street Costumes in Greenville, KY. We arrived in KY around 6:30pm Friday night and visited with my parents until the rest of the family arrived later that evening. Before long we were all ready for bed as we had a busy day ahead of us. The next morning started earlier than I like for a weekend but had to be done. We arrived at the shop at 8am and everyone jumped into action of setting up tables and hauling out the goods to be sold. Props that my brother build had to be set up and ready to go and with just about 10 minutes until we opened we were ready and the first customer rolled into the driveway. We had a steady stream of customers for most of the day. We had a sprinkle or two crop up and we scrambled for tarps to cover the tables. When the rain moved out we all commenced to drying things off that was a little damp or had water drops on them. After the first round of sprinkles and drying cession, little did I know we would be repeating this in about a half hour. It happened again a third time and then at 3pm the heavens opened up and a down pour sent us scrambling to get stuff off the ground and under the tarp. After that we still had a sprinkle or two roll though the area. I know I dried off the same plastic package, a superman costume, at least 4 or 5 times. My brother and I painted at least 20 to 25 kids cheeks for what I think was a rather successful weekend other than the rain which made it a lot more work. By the end of it we were all soaked to the bone and tired from all the running around. When 6pm rolled around we were all looking forward to dry clothes and some food in our stomachs. My cousin and his wife invited us all to the local Mexican place for some good food and a nice evening. On our way back home we meet with my Dad at Wally World where he purchased a new LCD TV and when we got home we hooked it up for them in their living room. By this time it was after 9pm and we were all worn out. This morning we had breakfast and went back to the shop to put away all the costume bag that were laid out to dry over night. A lot of them just had droplets of rain on the package but others had to be removed from their packages to dry out. We got everything organized and then returned to my parents for just a few minutes before we made our return trip home. We ran through several showers and down pours on our way home, finally arriving home around 4:30pm. After we unloaded the car I drove it back to the garage to park and noticed something in the yard. When I walked around the garage I noticed a rather large snapping turtle in the back yard. After I pestered him until he was good and mad I let him go about his way. The last time I saw him he was walking down the sidewalk in front of the neighbors house. Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Store front.

Free Elmo hugs.
Face Painting.
Pumpkin Decorating.

The front yard.

Home of the BIG SKULL.

This ones for you Peaches.

We Made a Day of It.

Grasshopper in flight.
Eagle in flight.

Deer in beans

Congo anyone?

Cormorants at dark.

Spell flower.

Turtle in the soft shell.

Who are you?

And the pitch.

Light snack.

Golden moment.

Snowy flight.